Friday, July 1, 2011

After the Affair: Storm Damage

When tornadoes blow through my town, many many trees come down. Unfortunately, the sirens didn't go off, so my husband and I being the weather geeks we are, watched the whole thing from the front windows. I knew it wasn't your typical thunderstorm when the hackberry out front started to literally twist in the wind.

This one split in two at a bad crotch where rot had set in.

We were very lucky. There were just a few branches down from the aforementioned hackberry and the ashes across the street. Touring the neighborhoods, though, we saw huge limbs and whole trees down on top of houses and cars. My parents called to tell me half an elm tree went through the neighbor's kitchen.

An ash took out about half of the Kentucky coffeetree in the parkway.

We'll see if the village keeps the parkway tree, but I'm doubtful.

So, what to do now? The village has hired a legion of tree companies to clean up the damage and it is slowly getting done. We'll see what the ongoing plan will be for trimming, removal, and replacement. Most of the downed branches seem to be from old ash, silver maple, and Norway maple. There's a smattering of black walnut, catalpa, linden, and one ancient oak tree that I've spotted, but mostly ash and maple. I am not surprised. The giant ash trees on my street drop branches if you sneeze on them and silver maple is a weak tree. We now have the opportunity to replace them with a broader palette of trees. I'm just thankful my baby beech made it through without a scratch.

The U of I put together a nice article on what to do with storm damage. Mother Nature is in charge, but if trained well when young, trees can survive an amazing amount of stress.